The Buzz on Canandian Artist: Aganetha Dyke

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Hauntingly beautiful

That’s what I thought when I looked at images from the “Masked Ball” series of sculptures by Aganetha Dyke.

Aganetha Dyck is a Canadian artist that was born in Manitoba in 1937. She now resides in Winnipeg, Canada. Much of her work centers on, or relates to honey bees. My favorites are the “Masked Ball” series of sculptures. To create these, and other similar sculptures, Ms. Dyck uses found objects (figurines, shoes, sports equipment, etc.). After finding the pieces she will use, Ms. Dyck paints bee pheromones onto them before placing them into active bee hives, and leaves them there, sometimes for years.

The Art of the Bees

Ms. Dyck has always found the bees to be an incredible architects, who build beautiful 3 dimensional sculptures. Sculpture that she believes to be true art. Ms. Dyke views her art as a collaborative effort between her and the honey bees with which she works. Communication between different species has long been an interest of Ms. Dyck, and she considers the bees co-artists. She believes that works such as hers can remind us of our interconnections with other species, our shared vulnerability, and our fleeting life in the world.

Much of the research she has done on bees has focused on the ramifications of the disappearing honey bee for our world.

“I’m really concerned for them. 95 per cent of wild honey bees have disappeared. When you’re so close to a creature that’s so important to the world and you know how quickly they could disappear, and what that would do to humanity, that’s a relationship that’s pretty precious.”

-Aganetha Dyke

Though many of her works rely directly on the laying down of beeswax by bees, some of her work is in the form of scans and images taken from inside working hives, creations that combine drawings with hive parts or beeswax, and creations made by dipping everyday items into melted beeswax.

Her work has been exhibited in many galleries and museums in the past, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Upcoming Exhibit

To see some of Aganetha Dyck’s work up close and personal, consider visiting the upcoming Something More than Nothing exhibit. It will be at the Reach Gallery Museum in Abbotsford, British Columbia (on the US-Canada border very near Vancouver, BC) from 5/23/2019 through 9/15/2019. This exhibit contains work from several artists. It deals with the concept that hidden or ignored work is nevertheless fundamental and necessary in our world.